Through her eyes
by Acalanthis
Summary: InuYasha's musings on the woman he loves, yet wants to hate so badly.


**Disclaimer**: InuYasha and its associated characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi and a probably frightening large number of companies. No profit is gained or intended from the publishing of this work. Therefore, I should be most grateful if you refrained from sueing me. If this story offends those holding the legal rights to InuYasha, it shall be taken down immediately. A word (preferably in English or German) would be enough.

Thank you.

**Through her eyes**

I suppose I could hate you, thoroughly, if I looked at you through her eyes: a face so much like her own, yet fundamentally different. Yes, I could hate you. We could hate you, together, in unity.

But I cannot.

I tried, kami, how I've tried to hate, to loathe, to abhor you. I forced myself to see your every flaw, every weakness. I pointed them out to myself on a regular basis, convinced I could so bring myself to hate you, the real you and not the part that resembles her, with only the chilly night winds as my witness.

I have found many reasons, too many to count, that would justify my hate for you. Because I _want_ to hate you. I _want_ to look at you with my own eyes and feel the hatred burn through my veins. I _want_ to look at you and feel my demon blood boil to the point where I am no longer entirely myself; to the point where I can raise my hand towards you and slaughter you viciously _without_ being able to feel the leaden regret seeping into my bones. Not the moment your crimson blood stains my hands, and most certainly not after.

Yet I am unable to, for you hold a power over me not unlike that which she holds. I cannot rid myself of you, not if I look at you with my own eyes for then I see again what it is that keeps me by your side.

With my own eyes I look at you and I feel my blood stir in a different way. I feel my heart jump in my chest in anticipation and I struggle with the urge to stand next to you and wrap my arms around your slender frame – so much like hers it should be impossible to tell you apart, yet it isn't. Not for me.

If I raise my own eyes to your face, I can forget, if only for a moment, the circumstances that are our common history. I can see you plainly for who you are and no matter how weak I may sound by saying that, I cannot keep the words down, cannot deny them the luxury of being heard, if only by the wind dancing through branches and leafs of trees in summer.

_I love you._

If I look at you, through my own eyes, I love you. All that you gave to me, all that you give and all that you will bestow upon me cannot change this. I **love** you, although I _want_ to be able to **hate** you. Loving you is wrong.

My heart should not beat the way it does when I look at you. There should not be a swarm of butterflies rising in my stomach whenmy mind focuses on you in the dead of night. Nothing will change this; nothing will change the fact that this is wrong. Do you understand?

Loving you is wrong. It is **wrong**.

It is betrayal… on her.

It is betrayal… on you.

It is betrayal… on myself.

For I swore to myself, I would not turn to you. I swore not to open my heart to you, not to lay it down - bare of any armor -before your feet and await your verdict to deem me unworthy; to deem me worthy; to deem me strong, powerful even; to deem me weak; to deem me tainted; to deem me pure. It makes no difference.

I do not want to be depending on your verdict so much, yet I do. I cannot stop myself from wondering what you would think, what you would say, if you knewof thesethoughts, whichI keep so carefully hidden from you.

Would they disgust you? Would they make you loath me? I hope they would.

Would they touch you? Would they make you feel for me? I fear they might.

And yet I would welcome loath and disgust the same way I would welcome your love, your pity, even if I wanted to resent you for both.

So I suppose, I cannot hate you, not through my own eyes, for each eye perceives you differently. I require her eyes to hate you, to hate you as thoroughly as I love her. And yet… I wonder.

Could I hate her, thoroughly, if I saw her through your eyes?


End file.
